Never Meant
by Cheloya
Summary: AU. Not quite late for a business meeting, Sesshoumaru has an encounter with a plant mister and receives an apology flower.


Disclaimer: Sesshoumaru and Rin do not belong to me.

Notes: AU, fairly obviously.

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**Never Meant**

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He is not precisely dawdling. Men of Sesshoumaru's stature do not dawdle. He is merely running a little ahead of schedule and so feels that he can take the time to stroll rather than stride.

It is, after all, a beautiful day.

Confined as he is in a suit and expensive shoes, weighed down on one side by a slim and stylish-looking briefcase, he is not uncomfortable. The air is fresh and pleasant against his cheeks; too faint to unsettle either his tie or his carefully combed hair, the breeze nevertheless carries with it the faintest hint of spring - or perhaps the credit belongs to the tiny florist's cart that has set up just outside the entrance to his client's building.

He glances over its contents with a disparaging eye; they are healthy enough, he supposes, but he has never been overly fond of flowers, particularly in the workplace. Sesshoumaru has never seen viability in showering a client with gifts and affection. He is hired for a purpose and he fulfils it; his own employees are expected to do the same.

His cold and vaguely irritable train of thought persists as his gaze lingers on the bright, artfully dew-dropped petals of the flowers in the cart. It isn't until a jet of water hits him square in the face that he realises there are not only flowers on the cart, but a young girl.

A young girl with a plant mister and a shocked expression.

He wipes the water from his eyes with one hand and frowns down at his tie. Silk. Ruined. His gaze transfers itself seamlessly to the girl, who promptly drops her plant mister and scrambles down from her perch atop the cart, amid the flowers.

"I'm sorry, mister," she says, so loudly that it stills the street around them. "I didn't mean to! The front was coming off and I put it back on and--" Her small, piping voice immediately brings them to the attention of everybody on the street. Sesshoumaru, who had perhaps been getting ready to snarl wordlessly at her and stalk into the godsforsaken meeting sans tie, stares instead, as she offers the sleeve of her threadbare dress to him.

Muddy eyes stare up, earnest and concerned. He blinks, chill amber, and forces himself to respond.

"Don't alarm yourself. It's only water." And only a tie, after all, he reminds himself. No need to scold the child, though he wonders where her parents could be. "...is this your cart?"

And suddenly the mud is warm and comforting; _cinnamon_ , he notes absently as she beams up at him, plant mister dangling carelessly at her side. "Mama's cart," she confesses with a giggle, and blinks as though she's just remembered something. "She's just gone t' get a coffee from inside, she won't be more'n ten minutes, queue-willing, but if you want to make an order you can leave your name-and-number and we'll get back to you soon's we can!"

She gulps in a huge lungful of air as she rounds off her speech, and stands smiling up at him, trustingly. He feels a little uncomfortable about the ease with which she talks to an absolute stranger; how can her mother leave her alone like this, even for ten minutes?

It's not his responsibility. She isn't _his_ daughter.

"No, thankyou," he tells her. "But you said it perfectly." The smile on that small face stretches far beyond the boundaries of mere flesh.

He makes to move toward that meeting, suddenly aware that the stroll or the chat would have been fine, but both are bringing him just a little too close to on-the-dot instead of early. He nods to the girl, makes to move past her, and is surprised to feel something small and scratchy being pressed into his hand.

"I can't give you a proper bunch," she tells him seriously. "But I think this one's just as pretty." A gap-toothed grin, a little wave, and she's back to her plant mister – aiming carefully at the plants now, with no careless movements to endanger other occupants of the sidewalk.

Sesshoumaru stares for a moment at the common daisy pressed into his palm, scratchy and slightly stiffer than he expects of a flower stem, somehow. It's not the right sort of flower to sport in a buttonhole. He slips it into his pocket and then, in the shockingly empty elevator, he slides it into the third pen loop in his briefcase.

He is strangely disappointed when, after the meeting, the flower cart is gone.

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A/N: Just a fifteen minute ficlet, though I suspect there's more to this. Let me know what you think, please.


End file.
